NOT ONLY our Bible but the scriptures of all the nations of the world testify to the existence of an invisible force moving men and nature in their various activities. Not all agree as to the character of this omnipresent force, universal Spirit, but it serves the purpose of being their god under whatever name it may appear. Different nations ostensibly believe in the same scriptures, but they have various concepts of the universal Spirit; some conceive it to be nature and others God. Robert Browning says, "What I call God . . . fools call Nature."
Our Bible plainly teaches that God implanted in man His perfect image and likeness, with executive ability to carry out all the creative plans of the Great Architect. When man arrives at a certain point in spiritual understanding it is his office to co-operate with the God principle in creation. Jesus had reached this point, and He said, "My Father worketh even until now, and I work."
It is possible for man to form states of consciousness that are out of harmony with the God principle, but these do not endure, and through experience man learns to adjust his thought to that of God. "I
will be what I will to be" is basic in all creation and it proves itself in the face of human reason and logic. God is free to do as He wills, and He has implanted that same freedom in man. When we understand this ego-forming capacity of man and even of nature, we have the key that unlocks the many mysteries and contradictions that appear in every walk of life.
As the animating life of all things God is a unit, but as the mind that drives this life He is diverse. Every man is king in his own mental domain, and his subjects are his thoughts. When the king of Babylon called Daniel to interpret his dream of the image with the head of gold and feet of clay, the prophet prefaced his interpretation with these words, which contain in essence the kingly authority of every man:
"Thou, O king, art king of kings, unto whom the God of heaven hath given the kingdom, the power, and the strength, and the glory; and wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the birds of the heavens hath he given into thy hand, and hath made thee to rule over them all: thou art the head of gold."
"Thou art the head of gold" is true of every man, but in his ignorance man thinks he is the feet of clay. This thought of his own inefficiency darkens his mentality, and when the Lord attempts to communicate with him in symbols he has to call upon
external sources to explain them.
People in this atomic age civilization ask why God does not reveal Himself now as He did in Bible days. The fact is that God is talking to people everywhere, but they do not understand the message and brush it aside as an idle dream. We need to divest ourselves of the thought that Daniel and Joseph, in fact all the unusually wise men of the Bible, were especially inspired by God, that they were divinely appointed by the Lord to do His work. Everything points to their spiritual insight as the result of work on their part to that end. Daniel as a youth had been taught to worship Jehovah, the one and only God. He restrained the gross appetites of the flesh and thereby made himself receptive to Spirit. "But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the king's dainties, nor with the wine which he drank." He begged that he and his companion be allowed to eat herbs and drink water, which was granted; and the record says that at the end of even a ten-day test they were in better condition physically than all the youths that ate of the king's dainties, that God gave them knowledge and skill, and that Daniel had "understanding in all visions and dreams."
The body is the instrument of the mind, and the mind looks to the Spirit for its inspiration. A very little observation shows that the purer the mind the greater its capacity to receive and interpret the ideas
imparted to it by the Spirit. It does not require a doctor's diagnosis to prove that alcohol confuses the mind and injures the body. The daily toll of automobile accidents proves that drivers with alcohol in their stomachs are trifling with death. Although Paul advises that we eat what is set before us, asking no questions, experience proves that the advice of Daniel leads to better health and clearer thinking. Paul is credited with a giant intellect, but when he advised Timothy to take a little wine for his stomach's sake, we know that he was not inspired by the Spirit of wisdom.
Not only the Scriptures that we look to for authority in our daily living but also the experience of ourselves and our neighbors proves that those who cultivate communion with the Father within become conscious of a guiding light, call it what you will.
Those who scoff at this and say that it is all the work of the imagination are deluding themselves and ignoring a source of instruction and progress that they need above all things. If this sense world were the only world we shall ever know, the attainment of its ambitions might be sufficient for a man of meager outlook and small capacity, but the majority of us see ourselves and the world about us in a process of transformation that will ultimate in conditions here on the earth far superior to those we have imagined for heaven.
"Great is the mystery of godliness," and still
greater is the capacity for godliness. When Spirit responds to the seeking mind and begins to reveal the magnitude of that undiscovered country within us, we long for a new language with words describing glories beyond all human comparison. Even our so-called physical body reveals a radiant body (which Jesus referred to as sitting on the throne of His glory) that interlaces the trillions of cells of the organism and burns as brightly as an electric light. Jesus gave His apostles a glimpse of this radiant body when He was transformed before them. "And as he was praying, the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his raiment became white and dazzling."
Jesus was very advanced, and His radiant body was developed in larger degree than that of anyone in our race, but we all have this body, and its development is in proportion to our spiritual culture. In Jesus this body of light glowed "as he was praying." Jesus' body did not go down to corruption, but He, by the intensity of His spiritual devotion, restored every cell to its innate state of atomic light and power. When John was in the state of spiritual devotion Jesus appeared to him, "and his eyes were as a flame of fire; and his feet like unto burnished brass." Jesus lives today in that body of glorified electricity in a kingdom that interpenetrates the earth and its environment. He called it the kingdom of the heavens.
We do not have to look to the many experiences recorded in the Bible of the spiritually illumined to prove the existence of the spiritual supersubstance. People everywhere are discovering it, as they always have in every age and clime. Unless it is put under control of the Christ Mind it takes on psychic and "spooky" expressions, which distort the soul instead of unfolding it under divine law, and drive its victims into our psychopathic sanatoria. However, men will continue to pray, and prayer releases the innate glory of God-Mind, so we must be taught how to establish our identity with the Christ and through it to gain the mastery of the stored-up riches of the man invisible.
The metaphysical literature of our day is very rich with the experiences of those who have found through various channels the existence of the radiant body. One example is Angela Morgan's book "Behold the Angel!" Miss Morgan's writing in this book is a radical departure from her well-known poetical vein. She is specific and to the point in announcing her revelations. She says in the foreword:
She tells of numerous instances in which she saw hands and feet and other parts of her body lighted or really transformed by the flame invisible.
This convincing confession of Miss Morgan prompts me to tell of my development of the radiant body, during half a century's experience. It began when I was mentally affirming statements of Truth. Just between my eyes, but above, I felt a "thrill" that lasted a few moments, then passed away. I found I could repeat this experience with affirmations. As time went on I could set up this "thrill" at other points in my body and finally it became a continuous current throughout my nervous system. I called it "the Spirit" and found that it was connected with a universal life force whose source was the Christ. As taught in the Bible, we have through wrong thinking and living lost contact with the parent life. Jesus Christ incarnated in the flesh and thereby introduced us by His Word into the original Father life. He said, "If a man keep my word, he shall never taste of death." I have believed that and affirmed His words until they have become organized in my body. Sometimes when I make this claim of Christ life in the body I am asked if I expect to live always in this flesh. My answer is that I realize that the flesh is being broken down every day and its cells transformed into energy and life, and a new body is being formed
of a very superior quality. That new body in Christ will be my future habitation.
I have found that the kingdom of God is within man and that we are wasting our time and defeating the work of the Spirit if we look for it anywhere else.